Who is suppressing "any dialog or speech critical of Jewish society or Israel"? I've seen plenty of speech, that has not been suppressed, critical of Israel and their treatment of Palestinians, from Jews and non-Jews alike.

Also, remember that "speech critical of Jewish society" can pretty quickly get to "anti-Semitism" if you're not careful. It's one thing to criticize a state's action. It's another to criticize a whole society, as if it's a monolithic organization, especially if you are not a member of said society and don't actually know much about it. At a certain point, it just starts to sound like you have a bone to pick with that society, rather than any actual criticism that is at all constructive.

Astrophysics uses the term "black hole" to describe an object so massive and dense that nothing ever escapes from its gravitational field, not even light.

If you are frustrated dealing with a bureaucratic organization because they're always asking for information and forms but they never respond to questions or requests for information, and you use the term "black hole" to describe the organization...

... and some ignorant person construes this as a racist comment and takes offense...

then whitesplaining my arse, you have committed no sin and you don't owe anyone an apology or a retraction.

It's not always up to the "victim" to define the terms of the dialogue.

Sorry to be snippy, but there's not a huge amount of 'nuance' necessary here. These were clearly satirical, anti-finals club flyers - meant to portray the clubs as patronizingly bigotted. The article points out that flyers with similar intent (although apparently not as satirical) were slipped under doors for each of the last two years.

Harvard final clubs have been off and on controversial since at least the early 80s. Not really anything new here.

(Btw, the best part of the article is where the president of the Harvard Lampoon was questioned by the administration and "adamantly said his organization had nothing to do with the flyers, which he said were 'basely crass' in a tone inconsistent with the Lampoonâ€™s style of 'pretentiously crass' humor.")

No, this is anti-Semitism. Bad behavior by clubs is also anti-Semitism. To paraphrase Oprah, "You're an anti-Semite. And you're an anti-Semite! Everyone is an anti-Semite."

For the record, I am Jewish of Israeli descent by way of escaping the Holocaust. The first thing I did when reading this news was reminding myself when Kristallnacht happened because I mis-remembered that it was on 11/29 (it was 11/9 - 11/10). I haven't had to experience the type of anti-Semitism my grandparents did, but the memories are still potent enough that any type of anti-Jewish sentiment is very scary.

I disagree that this is anti-semitism. If you can't allow for irony and sarcasm as commentary then that damns alot of people. It makes Randy Newman pretty vile-- racist, northern-ist, imperialist, height-ist....

I think it is a valid way to criticize, it's the people who don't laugh that we need to be wary of

If these fliers were dropped in South Boston the attorney general and and every media outlet would be doing stories on how southie is racist and anti semetic.
At Harvard this is an intellectual prank in Southie this would be considered Hate Speech.

The number of fake 'hate' crimes is getting ridiculous. And if I'm wrong [I don't think I am], my sincerest apologies.

Anyone know what happened to the Jewish dude in NYC who was mad at his family and neighbors about something, so he started posting antisemitic graffiti over the neighborhood? Seriously, authorities have to really crack down hard on people who do this kind of stuff.